NEW DELHI - India's most famous yoga guru began a fast to the death on Saturday to demand reforms including the death penalty for corrupt officials in an anti-graft campaign that has undermined an embattled Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The saffron-robed and bearded Swami Ramdev, who rose from an illiterate family to host a television show with 30 million viewers and own a "peace" island in Scotland, sat with thousands of followers in a tent the size of four football pitches in Delhi.
One newspaper called it "Yogitation".
"Since 1947 our leaders have failed us, they have given us independence but we still live in poverty and only the few are rich," said Balwinder Singh, a civil servant from the northern state of Punjab.
